3-DAY IN-SERVICE SUMMER REFRESHER COURSE FOR TEACHING STAFF, 2013

The academic session resumed for teachers in Modernage after the summer break with a 3-Day Intensive Summer Refresher Course from Thurs 15^th Aug to Sat 17^th Aug, 2013. The training sessions each day began with presentations of different departments of Modernage about the activities that they remained engaged in since the beginning of the current academic year. Both the Pre-Primary and Primary Sections of Modernage presented a detailed overview of their academic and co-curricular activities. Besides, the Departments of Biology & Chemistry of Girls College and the Departments of Maths, Physics and Islamiat from the Boys College also briefed the faculty members about their activities. These presentations helped us to understand how our activities are connected vertically as well as horizontally so as to generate a synergy leading to achievement of the common vision of Modernage. 

After the initial presentations, two concurrent plenary sessions were held on all three days. These included Seven Habits of Highly Effective Team Members by Mr Abdul Wahid Mir, Know Your Teaching Style by Ms Aatika Salam, Helping Students Learn How to Attempt a Paper by Ms Sumeera Wahid and Low Anxiety Classroom by Mr. Asif Khan. Of these the first two were held twice separately for two groups of teachers. In the second half of the day, concurrent workshops were held specifically for teachers dealing with students at Pre-Primary, Primary, Secondary and Higher Secondary levels. The topics for Pre-Primary and Primary included Helping Students to Construct Knowledge Using the SLOs of Curriculum by Mr. Asif Khan, Cognitive, Social & Moral Development by Ms Aatika Salam, Using Phonics to Teach Reading by Ms. Fozia Asim, Building Blocks of Learning and Gross & Fine Motor Skills Development by Ms Sumeera Wahid. The teachers of Secondary and Higher Secondary levels participated in workshops namely Handling Students with Challenging Behaviour by Ms Fauzia Shah, Learning How to Conduct a Science Practical by Prof. Muhammad Farid (only for science teachers), Developing Questions for a Comprehension Passage by Ms Shagufta Tahir (only for language teachers) and Teaching Probability to Students by Dr. Sultan Hussain (only for Math teachers). The workshop on Building Blocks of Learning by Ms Sumeera Wahid was also repeated for this group of teachers as well.

The topics of all these workshops were based on the first two standards of the National Professional Standards for Teachers in Pakistan published by the Ministry of Education in 2009. It was felt that the training sessions were much more systematic and organized.